9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions is a 9/11 conspiracy theory book written in 2005 by theologian David Ray Griffin. Even though the book is now a decade old, and most, if not all, of the claims made in this book have been debunked/rationally explained, truthers still like to tout this book as concrete facts. I will try and go through each chapter and point out the several fallacies made. Since there are so many to address, this will be going in multiple parts.
CHAPTER I: THE ALLEGED HIJACKERS
SIX HIJACKERS STILL KICKING IT?
This chapter, though brief, brings out a lot of information for the reader. The first claim made is that six of the hijackers are actually still alive. Griffin claims that one of the hijackers on AA11, Waleed al-Sheri, was interviewed after 9/11 vy a London based newspaper, and the AP reported that he has said he lives in Casablanca working as, get this, a pilot, for Royal Air Maroc. Sounds pretty intriguing, yes? Not when you look at the actual facts. First of all, here is American Airlines Flight 11 manifest, which shows Waleed al-Shehri's name:
He is the second passenger named on the manifest. So who is this other dude? Let's quite literally spell it out for you.
The man Griffin is referring to is Waleed Ahmed al-Shehri. The person the FBI have named as a hijacker was Waleed Mohammad al-Shehri. Here is his visa application.
Note how laxed the government was pre-9/11 on issuing visas. Not so much anymore.
Also of note, his father thinks he and his brother are both dead, and he hadn't seen them in months. https://web.archive.org/web/20020929001039/www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=9424&ArY=2001&ArM=9&ArD=17
Also sounds like Shehri is a fairly common name in Saudi Arabia. One Saudi diplomat, when asked if they were his sons, replied "How do I know? We have a half million Shehris in Saudi Arabia."
The next names mentioned are Ahmed al-Nami and Saeed al-Ghamdi, both hijackers from United Airlines Flight 93. He references this Telegraph article: http://web.archive.org/web/20011222042847/http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/23/widen23.xml
Let's start with al-Ghamdi. The article states before his quotes that their names and photographs were shown around the world. But, when al-Ghamdi talks, he said he first heard about being on the list from a colleague of his. If only he had seen the picture used by the FBI, he would understand it was a different person. Here is the alive al-Ghamdi, and the hijacker al-Ghamdi side by side for comparison. Notice the brow is different, as is the nose.
Yet another case of mistaken identity with the same/similar names. Now for al-Nami. He states in the article that he fears that his identity was stolen by one of the hijackers. Never mind that the article states the alive al-Nami is 33 years old at the time the article was published, and the hijacker al-Nami was 24. Yet again, more mistaken identity.
Griffin then states that the Saudi embassy in Washington DC reported that six alleged hijackers were still alive, which is where this claim comes from. His source for this is a book called 9/11: The Big Lie. Another conspiracy theory book. However, in 2002, the Saudi Arabian government acknowledged that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/02/06/saudi.htm
This article was published in 2002, a full three years before Griffin published this book. So either he is blatantly lying about this claim, or is showing a willful ignorance to the real facts. He closes this section by stating that the 9/11 Commission simply ignored these media reports and agreed with the FBI hijacker lists, again, ignoring the fact that Saudi Arabia acknowledged that 15 of the hijackers, all of which he claims are still alive, were indeed the terrorists that crashed the planes.
ATTA THE PARTY ANIMAL
He then goes into a new topic: Mohammed Atta and his fetish for booze, drugs, and prostitutes. First, let's start with his claim that Atta lived with a prostitute in Florida. The claims are believed to come from Amanda Keller, who she claims lived with Atta for a few months in 2001. Some problems with this? Her landlords don't recall anyone looking like Atta living with her at that time. Her parents don't recall anyone looking like Atta. And oh yeah, she denies it in a September 23, 2001 edition of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. She then denies it again in 2006: http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060910/NEWS/609100466/1007/BUSINESS
What Griffin cites is a time when she decided to lie about it, apparently. Why? Who knows. Attention? Some gross feeling of fame? She says this, showing clear remorse: "It was my bad for lying. I really didn't think about it until after I did it."
Yeah, I'm sure the families of the victims on board AA11 and the North Tower appreciate this. She apparently gets hounded by conspiracy theorists, because why else would she move from Florida to Ohio and change her name?
So there goes one notion of Griffin's narrative. As for the alcohol, drugs, etc., just because your a religious fanatic doesn't mean you do not have vices. Look at the numerous GOP politicians that thump their Bibles and admonish homosexuality, only to be found getting their dicks waxed in some seedy bathroom stall at some restaurant or gas station.
For Muslim examples, General Reza Zarei, who was Tehran's chief of police, was arrested after being caught with six prostitutes in a brothel. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-police-chief-incarcerated-prostitute-scandal-rattles-tehran-government-a-550156.html
The Madrid train bombers fancied themselves smoking pot, drinking alcohol, and also talks about another sect of Islam called Takfir, which loosens up on Islamic law and, shocker, attracts drug addicts and criminals. http://www.cannabis.net/articles/assass.html
American born cleric Anwar Awlaki was arrested TWICE in San Diego for soliciting prostitutes. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/09/anwar-awlaki-the-american-born-cleric-and-jihadist-killed-by-a-us-backed-drone-strike-in-yemen-spent-several-years-in-san.html
Even Osama bin Laden himself, who I already talked about previously with the whole gold rings stuff, was found to have a vast pornography collection when his compound was raided by Navy SEALs, which ultimately led to his death. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/porn-found-osama-bin-laden-evidence-trove/story?id=13599025
File this all under: Fanatics do not always practice what they preach, or find some other sect to wiggle around religious laws. In other news, the sky is blue. More at 11.
HANNI HANJOUR THE AMAZING, THE FANTASTIC, THE MOST INTERESTING PILOT IN THE WORLD!
I believe I have already addressed Hani Hanjour and his, as truthers hilariously put it, impossible maneuver. To view the video of an amateur pilot duplication this maneuver multiple times and hitting the Petagon, please view my Flight 77 page.
Anyways, Griffin find it troubling that the Commission did not find fault that AA77 doing a 330 degree turn to hit the Pentagon was out of the ordinary. He doesn't seem to understand that the Commission's job is to take all of the data, testimonies, etc, and fairly robotically produce a narrative of the day, and then make recommendations on helping to prevent a repeat. He believes this maneuver to finish by hitting the Pentagon would have taken a highly skilled pilot. He references a Washington Post article stating that many believe that a trained pilot must have been at the helm.
Well, Hanjour was trained, after all. He had a federal pilots license and a log book with over 600 hours of flight time. In fact, the Report does mention Hanjour's troubles in flight training, but also mentions that he perseveres and obtains all of his licenses and certificates. From page 242 of the Report:
Jarrah and Hanjour also received additional training and practice flights in the early summer. A few days before departing on his cross-country test flight, Jarrah flew from Fort Lauderdale to Philadelphia, where he trained at Hortman Aviation and asked to fly the Hudson Corridor, a low-altitude "hallways" along the Hudson Rover that passes New York landmarks like the World Trade Center. Heavy traffic in the area can make the corridor a dangerous route for an inexperienced pilot. Because Hortman deemed Jarrah unfit to fly solo, he could fly his route with an instructor. Hanjour, too, requested to fly the Hudson Corridor about this same time, at Air Fleet Training Systems in Teterboro, New Jersey, where he started receiving ground instruction soon after settling in the area with Hazmi. Hanjour flew the Hudson Corridor, but his instructor declined a second request because of what he considered Hanjour's poor piloting skills. Shortly thereafter, Hanjour switched to Caldwell Flight Academy in Fairfield, New Jersey, where he rented a small aircraft on several occasions during June and July. In one such instance on July 20, Hanjour-likely accompanied by Hazmi-rented a plane from Caldwell and took a practice flight from Fairfield to Gaithersburg, Maryland, a route that would have allowed them to fly near Washington D.C.
Page 225:
In 1996, Hanjour returned to the United States to pursue flight training after being rejected by a Saudi flight school. He checked out flight schools in Florida, California, and Arizona; and he briefly started at a couple of them before returning to Saudi Arabia. In 1997, he returned to Florida and then, along with two friends, went back to Arizona and began flight training there in earnest. After about three months, Hanjour was able to obtain his private pilot's license. Several moremonths of training yielded him a commercial pilot certificate, issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in April 1999.
Page 227:
Settling in Mesa, Hanjour began refresher training at his old school, Arizona Aviation. He wanted to train on multi-engine planes, but had difficulties because his English was not good enough. The instructor advised him to discontinue but Hanjour said he could not go home without completing the training. In early 2001, he started training on a Boeing 737 simulator at Pan Am International Flight Academy in Mesa. An instructor there found his work well below standard and discouraged him from continuing. Again, Hanjour persevered; he completed the initial training by the end of March 2001.
Marcel Bernard, one of Hanjour's flight instructors, and also interviewed on the Loose Change video, believes he hit the Pentagon. He however quips with "He may have been aiming for the White House when he hit the Pentagon." http://www.dcdave.com/article5/150406.htm
Also, the FDR lines up with the official flight path that American Airlines Flight 77 did indeed make that maneuver, and hit the Pentagon.
Also, several pilots have come forward to state that this maneuver really isn't that hard to pull off, especially when you have no remorse for the well being of the plane or the passengers.
Ronald D. Bull, a retired United Airlines pilot: It's not that difficult, and certainly not impossible. If you're doing a suicide run, like these guys were doing, you'd just keep the nose down and push like the devil."
George Williams of Waxhaw, NC, who has piloted 707s, 727s, DC-10s, 747s for Northwest Airlines: I don't see any merit to these arguments [that the maneuver was impossible] what so ever. The Pentagon is a pretty big target and I'd say hitting it was a fairly easy thing to do."
And another pilot, this one with Italian Air Frce pilot experience as well: http://www.911myths.com/images/7/73/Another_Expert.pdf
DID ANY OF THE HIJACKERS REALLY EXIST?!
Griffin closes this chapter by asking this question: Do we have any publicly available proof that any of the 19 men named by the FBI and 9/11 Commission were on any of the four planes?
His answer: No. We have been told that their names were on the flight manifests. But the flight manifests have been released and have no Arab names on them.
Hoooooooooo boy. He gives a citation of a CNN link. Let's have a looksy shall we? Here is the link for yourselves: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA11.victims.html
Now, before even clicking the link, what stands out to you about this citation that Griffin claims is AA11's flight manifest? The link no longer works, oddly enough, but the main page for all of it does here: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/main.html
At the top of the page in big bold lettering states: LIST OF VICTIMS.
The URL states victims in them multiple times. David Ray Griffin uses webpages that lists the victims of each flight and states it is the manifests. How unbelievably stupid and/or manipulative can you be? This pisses me off to the point that I will, again, post the manifests of every flight.
American Airlines Flight 11
United Airlines Flight 175
American Airlines Flight 77
United Airlines Flight 93
Every single hijacker is listed. Every. Single. One. The fact that he knowingly uses a link that clearly states it is listing the victims is both irresponsible as a researcher and, to put it bluntly, absolutely disgusting.
He finishes this chapter by stating that the "Commission's treatment of the alleged hijackers-a central feature of the official conspiracy theory presupposed by the Commission-does not bode well for the rest of the report."
Oh contraire my manipulative asshole of a (not really)friend! I have shown that you are defending known terrorists and have willingly used manipulative "evidence" to back up your already established conclusion. This, is the opposite of conducting research. This does not bode well for the rest of your book, nor my liver while I keep reading it.
